There are so many ways you can turn your information or solutions into products. But what if you’re not sure HOW to compile that information, or WHAT solutions your tribe needs or wants? Well, in this unit, we’re going to look at ways you can take the common questions, or feedback from people in your niche and leverage it into content (products).

Leveraging your content means that you take it from the current form it’s in and offer it in a different way, which increases the perceived value of the product. When you leverage your content, you package it up as different products that showcase your information or expertise to maximum advantage.

Leverage Your FAQs Into Products or Programs

For example, if you published an eBook comprised of your forum FAQs, what value would people place on that? What would YOU be willing to pay for an eBook of Website FAQs? Not too much, eh?

But what if you looked at your FAQs and you realized that one of your tribe’s biggest problems (for which they are begging for a solution) is… how to ensure their pipes don’t freeze in winter (for example). If burst pipes carry a $2,000 repair tag, how valuable would an eBook be that taught them How To Make SURE Your Pipes NEVER Burst In Even The Worst Winter…? Now how valuable is that eBook, which contains exactly the same information as the Site FAQ eBook?

So although this type of content starts from an FAQ, it is NOT positioned, nor presented as an FAQ (which has a low perceived value). It may be the exact same content or information, but it is positioned as X Training, or a Course, or Seminar, or Solution.

Just be sure to deliver detailed answers that give enough information for the person to be able to take action, or achieve clarity, or move forward in some way. Even if you are going to make this piece your freebie, NEVER NEVER give away poor quality stuff for free. Why would I give you money when you have shown me you do a poor job, and don’t really know what you’re talking about? Make sure your free stuff is your best stuff that really showcases your strengths.

Your customer’s or site visitor’s FAQs are also their most pressing problems. So when you give them solutions to their top problems, you are positioning yourself as the expert and the person who can really help them move forward.

Use Anyone’s FAQs! 

Keep in mind, that your customer’s FAQs (frequently asked questions) don’t have to come from your own blog, or forum, or Facebook page! As you participate in, or research niche forums or blogs, you will begin to notice that people are asking the same questions over and over again. Even reading product reviews on Amazon, you may notice that people have the same concerns or problems.

So it doesn’t matter where those FAQs come from, what’s important is what they tell you about where people are searching for answers and solutions. And if you provide those solutions, you know you will have a pool of people interested in what you have to say.

Just remember what I said above and do NOT position your eBook, or Report, or video, or audio as an FAQ compilation! Make sure you position it as a SOLUTION to the problem(s).

To illustrate what I mean, the following examples contain exactly the same content and the topics are pulled from FAQs, but you will see how the positioning, or presentation of the content (as a solution to a problem) completely changes how you feel about the value of each.

So which do you feel is more valuable?:

High School Grads FAQ
or
How To Choose The Best College And Maximize Your Potential

Mogul Skiing FAQs
or
How To Dominate Moguls In 3 Days Easy

New Car Buyer Q&A
or
How To Save $250 in Gas By Treating Your New Car Right

Notice how for each of the good titles, they also contain a benefit. The benefit (good things the person will experience) always comes first. The features, or details, or specifications, come afterwards.

Also, look at the examples again and see how each one of these could take any format! They all could be made available in any of these forms:

• An eBook
• A course
• A workshop
• A teleseminar
• A webinar
• An audio recording, lecture style
• A consultation
• A video or DVD

How To Do It

Now that you’re starting to understand what I mean, let me walk you through exactly how to take those lovely FAQs from your people and turn them into products your people will love to have. Don’t worry, we will cover selling and delivering those products to your customer. In this bit we’re just focusing on product creation and getting it ready to sell.

When you build your business upon listening to your tribe and giving them what they are asking for, you will never be looking for revenue streams. Every single product and service in my health business (350+) has come from offering people the same solutions or products that I use myself, or from people asking me, “Could you PLEASE do this…” or “It would be helpful if…”

But where do your site visitor FAQ (frequently asked questions) come from? Ah, well now we are into the value of your blog, your videos, your Facebook page and other forms of social media where your tribe can interact with you. I’ll give you lots of ideas and instruction on how to engage your audience and get a dialogue going.

Another way to quickly gather your people’s top pressing questions is to survey your email list. Have you set up your opt-in or sign-up offer so you can begin collecting names and emails for your email list? Even if you only have 20 or 30 people on your list right now, that’s enough to start.

Ask them what their current challenges and difficulties are. Use a free service like SurveyMonkey.com and then create products that provide the solutions to those challenges, or difficulties, or desires. Or send them an email, or blog about a specific topic, and at the end of the email or blog post, ask them to share their frustrations or experiences around that topic.

If people keep asking me the same question over and over, it tells me that I am currently not providing them with that solution – so I better create it! If it’s a small question, I’m at the point now where I’ll make the answer a freebie – either a blog post, or a teleseminar, or video, or free eBook. For the answers that require a more in-depth response, those I’ll monetize and sell as an eBook or printed book, or teleseminar, or DVD.

Lastly, don’t forget to hang out in other people’s forums and blogs that cater to your niche and you’ll be able to glean some good FAQs from their tribes too. Now let’s brainstorm how to gather some of your own FAQs…

 

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Where are your current FAQs coming from? And where can you go to glean more and get even more in touch with your tribe’s pain points, or difficulties, or challenges?

 

 

 

 

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Here are some quick and easy ways you can listen to your people and then give them the solutions to the questions they are asking you – and thereby create your first products! For each of these product ideas, you can then decide whether to make it a free or monetized product.

*Remember: For each of the ideas below, do not present, title, position, or refer to them as FAQs or Q&A! Always present the topic, the idea, or the question as a lead-in.

For example:

WRONG: “Here’s a question from my blog: How can I stop my pipes from freezing in the winter?”

RIGHT: “Let’s talk about how you can make absolutely sure your pipes don’t freeze this winter.”

Stay with me as I go through each of the product ideas below and you will see why it is best to present your topics this way.

Basically, if your content was always going to stay free (low perceived value), then you could call it a question, or FAQ, or whatever you wanted! But if you decide later to package up that information (your replies) you may then have to do extensive editing, or even re-do the exact same information in order to position it as a paid product.

Okay, let’s get started and you’ll see what I mean.

Here are the different ways you can leverage (package up) your FAQs into paid products:

Every week do a Q&A video. Each video features one of your customer’s FAQs (but remember, you DON’T EVER call them FAQs or Q&A! You simply present the question or the topic. The video could either be you presenting live, or a PowerPoint video, or a screenshot video, with your voice accompanying it. You can publish these single-topic videos to your public YouTube account – which will also help you generate search engine traffic for these topics (videos often rank higher in search engines than text, as there is less competition).

PACKAGE IT UP – Then take 6 to 10 of these videos and package them together into a Training Course with a cohesive theme or solution, where you email out the webpage link to one video per week. You would add an additional video at the end, or perhaps also at the beginning of the course, which are not available anywhere for free. NOTE: You would need to have a private video hosting account for this option, which is about $199 per year: Vimeo Pro.

Or, if your budget is tight, you could publish all the videos to a public YouTube account, but your Training Course has the videos embedded on a private, password-protected Page on your WordPress site, along with some customized text from you, or perhaps a quiz, or a download link to a PDF, or audio. In this way you are providing additional, private content so your customer feels the value of what s/he has purchased. But don’t upload the videos to your regular YouTube channel, where your people are likely to see them. Instead, create a second channel (that you don’t list or promote) and upload them there.

Every week (or month) do a Q&A blog post. Each blog post gives your detailed answer to one of your customer’s most frequently asked questions.

PACKAGE IT UP – Then take 6 to 8 of these blog posts and package them together into a more detailed Training Course or email Mini-Course (all relating to a central theme, or problem, or skill, etc.); where you email out one training, or action step per week. Again, you can copy/paste your public blog posts onto private, password-protected Pages. So when you email out each weekly piece, you give the link to the private page, along with the password for access.

You may be wondering: But won’t people get mad that they paid for content that is freely available on my blog? Honestly, I would be surprised if even ONE person contacted you about this! This is because people don’t know all the content you have on your blog. It is highly unlikely that anyone will have already read, and remembered more than 1 or 2 of your posts on that topic. But if that happened, of course you could issue a refund. And of course, you could also do the same thing I suggested above, and create some additional text, or a link to download a PDF, or audio, for those private Pages to differentiate them from the free blog posts.

Combine weekly videos with blog posts. Follow the exact same instructions above, but mix it up! Some weeks you give a video, others you send an email tutorial, or a PDF they can download. You can also add audio MP3s to this mix. Whatever you have, whichever way you prefer to present your stuff (content, information), it’s all good.

If you are only offering the occasional video (maximum of 3 videos), then you can upload these videos to a free platform like YouTube and it will not devalue the price people have paid for the program. But don’t upload them to your regular channel, where your people are likely to see them. Instead, create a second channel (that you don’t list or promote) and upload them there.

Turn your FAQs into an eBook. Again, you do NOT call this ebook FAQs, or Q&A with Jini – which has a low perceived value. Instead, you take all your FAQs around a particular topic – the ones that combined together solve a problem, or give a solution, and your eBook is the detailed solution to that common problem.

For example, let’s say you have a life coaching business and you continually get questions about procrastination. Or perhaps your clients and site visitors have a hard time believing in themselves and their lack of worthiness leads to sabotage in their life or business. For sure, you have already received tons of questions on both these topics and no doubt written lots of blog posts answering those questions too.

Well, guess what? Just compile all those blog posts, client emails and FAQs together and you now have two eBooks; one on How To Stop Procrastination Cold & Claim Your Success and the other on Top Ten Ways to Finally Have Faith in Yourself & Feel Empowered.

Remember Pat Flynn? Here’s what he has to say about packaging up your blog post content into an eBook:

“When I was creating my very first product, an eBook for my site at greenexamacademy.com, one thought kept racing through my head:

Why would anyone pay for this?!

“You see, I had built a blog that had all of the content one would need to pass the exam for which the site was about – and it was all free! So to package it into an eBook and sell it almost seemed like a sin to me.

“Again, why would anyone want to pay for an eBook that has the exact same information that could be found for free on my site?

“Fast forward to today and over 10,000 copies of the eBook sold – not one person has ever complained about the content of the eBook being the same as what could be found on the site.

“Not one. Why do you think that is? Because the eBook was convenient – and people will pay for convenience.“

Right, hopefully we’ve put that roadblock to bed and you’re freed up just a little bit more about multi-purposing your content.

Note: We’ll be covering book and eBook creation in depth later on.

Weekly or Monthly Teleseminar Series. Craft a series of teleseminars around the top FAQs (problems/solutions) that your customers experience. Invite an expert to be your guest for each one – make sure you choose someone that has real value to offer.

Make it free for people to join the calls, or listen to the replay each week. You only have to offer this live once (note: avoid date or seasonal references in the calls). Thereafter, you simply send a link to the replay page. The replay page is a hidden webpage on your site, where they can listen to the call – with WordPress, it’s not hard at all to set up hidden webpages.

Now take five or six of those teleseminars and put them together to form a series. If you have been solving your customer’s top problems, you will easily be able to pull a theme or themes from the content you created.

Let’s say you did 10 teleseminars on different challenges faced by authors of young adult novels. You can now package these together into a course on: How to Write a Young Adult Novel and Publish It on Kindle.

You could also choose to split this content into two courses. One on how to write the novel and the second on how to publish your novel and sell it as an eBook, or printed book.

Depending on your audience and type of content, you may also want to have each teleseminar transcribed into PDFs. If they contain lots of instructions, or formulas, or more concrete information, then PDFs are a good idea – so you offer both the audio and written transcript for your course.

If your content is more about inspiration, or clarity or concepts, then leaving them as audio-only is fine. Although you could charge more for an Audio + eBook, so for lighter content you may want to still do the book, but lay it out with lots of graphics, or printable charts; make it visually appealing.

Bonus: Of course, if you have the teleseminars transcribed, you can then put the text together and form an eBook, or printed book. Remember that different people prefer to learn in different ways. Maybe each teleseminar could be one chapter of your book. Some may prefer to buy your content in Audio teleseminar format and others in eBook or printed book format. You will also get some people who will buy both.

Video or Blog Post-based Course. Remember above, where you turned your reader FAQs into a weekly blog post, or a weekly video Q & A? Well, you can follow exactly the same format to create a course or training program, but make it even more in-depth.

You can still give your simple, or weekly Q&A away for free to build your audience, your exposure and your reputation (positioning you as an expert), but you can expand on each topic, go more in-depth to increase their value, and monetize them.

For example, your weekly public videos or blog posts contain a plan, but your monetized course offers the detailed implementation steps for that plan, or walks the person through it, broken down into step-by-step action modules, or, combines the detailed plan with a private consultation.

Example 1: So if you have a health business, your free course (PDF, eBook, or video) tells people which herbs to use to cure acne and then briefly tells them about each herb (constituents, history, extraction, picture) and gives a few people’s stories. Your monetized course or eBook (the one they have to pay for) gives this same information, but also gives the exact dosages and application instructions along with more detail, more photos and more stories.

Example 2: If you have a fitness business, your free course (PDF, eBook, video, or audio) gives people a brief outline of the top 5 most popular workouts to lose weight and sculpt different types of physiques (big and muscular, lean and sinewy, strong but smooth, elegant muscles, etc.) and a photo of what these physiques look like. Your monetized eBook, or training package has people select the type of body they want from the 5 physiques and then they receive a more detailed eBooklet on that specific training method along with an instructional workout video where you lead them through three workouts (beginner, intermediate, advanced) to create that physique.

Example 3: If you are a financial planner, your free course (PDF, eBook, video, or audio) has outlined the Top 10 strategies for maximum growth with varying risk levels. Your monetized package includes an instructional video on 1 to 3 of these strategies (walking them through real life application examples), combined with a one-hour private consult to apply the strategy of their choice to their own portfolio in a way that will maximize their results.

Okay, let’s break here and take some time to write down the ideas and inspiration you have for the products YOU can create for your tribe…

 

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Take some time to write down the ideas and inspiration you have for the products YOU can create for your tribe. Which of the formats we discussed (video, blog post, eBook, teleseminar, online course) twigged your interest? How would you like to turn your tribe’s FAQs into products or programs? Write any and all ideas here:

 

 

 

What’s the ONE easiest product for you to create right now? Pick the one that either draws you most strongly, or is the easiest, and start with that. Perhaps you want to start with just a PDF-format eBook, or a single MP3 audio. When you’re just starting out, it’s nice to pick something easy so you can gain confidence, satisfaction and fluency in your new business.

 

 

 

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Hopefully you now have a good understanding of how to leverage and multi-purpose the same content into a variety of different products – that sell for different price points. Let’s brainstorm ways you can leverage or multi-purpose some of your content…

 

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After listening to the audio with Annabel Fisher, how can you apply these ideas for leveraging or multi-purposing content to your existing products, or the ones you’re thinking of creating?

 

 

 

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Once you’ve created your products or courses, how do you tell people about them? How can you communicate how wonderful your new product is before someone’s experienced it?

Well, good thing you have your blog, and your email list of people who are connected to you and want more from you! You can now use your blog and email list to launch your new product or program to your followers and give them a taste and a preview of what they’ll be getting.

There are quick and simple ways to launch a new product or program, or there are more lengthy, involved product launches.

The type of product launch you decide to do depends on your whether your new product is a simple eBook (for example) or a 6-week long, very intensive, expensive training course.

Obviously, the more complex the product or program, and the more money you are asking people to pay, the longer and more detailed your product launch should be.

A longer, more detailed product launch gives you enough time to address every single question, doubt, or objection someone might have to purchasing. It also gives you enough time to deliver some fantastic content, so people know that your stuff is really good and is worth paying money for.

Simple Product Launch

The simple way to launch a new product or program is to let your email list (including blog subscribers) know about it by:

1. Email everyone on your list with some great info or a free gift related to your new product. So you give the info or gift first, then you tell them about your new product and the special offer you have for them. Make it a timed offer (good only until X date), and/or a special discounted offer (only to my readers).

You provide a link to a webpage or blog post where they can get (sign up for) the free gift and your sales copy with the shopping cart (or PayPal) link is underneath that. Or, you put a download link to the gift right in the email. And then also link to your sales page.

READ the email after you’ve let it sit for 24 hours. If you wouldn’t send it to your best friend, then it’s too salesy or smarmy and you need to re-write it. Pretend you are writing to a friend, not a sales prospect.

Also publish this same email as a blog post, but don’t give a download link to your freebie in a public blog post – make them sign-up to get it. The download links are only for people who are already on your email list. Use your email marketing platform to generate the code for the sign-up box. Then paste that code (in TEXT mode) into your blog post.

*Remember that every email you send, must have an ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom as this is required by United States CAN-SPAM laws.

Here’s what that first email could look like – feel free to use this as a template and just tailor it to your customer and product:

2. You email everyone again about 10 days later with some more information, or help, or video, or a freebie on the same topic. Again, give the offer for your new product after you’ve given the freebie. Make it a timed offer (good only until X date – make sure it’s the same date you gave in the first email!), and/or a special discounted offer (only to my readers). Link to your sales page, or landing page, for your new product. And again, give it the friend-test before sending.

3.  Send a third and final email 24 hours before your special offer will expire.

This next step is very important: Put LAST CHANCE in the subject heading.

It doesn’t matter how you word the Subject heading of your email, just make sure those words, “Last Chance!” are in there. Trust me, we have tested this repeatedly and you will get as many purchases from your ‘last chance’ email as you got from all your previous emails.

You can make this one short and sweet if you like – just re-state your offer, making it clear that this is the last chance to grab it before the offer expires – and you can also provide the links again to the freebies at the end, in case they missed them. Send them to your landing page, or sales page, to read more about your product and purchase it.

And that’s it. Your simple launch of your new product or program is complete.

Do not ever think that you can email your people once about your new product or service and get a good response! Always email at least 3 times.

Now, if offering your new product for sale three times feels too pushy for you (and maybe for your market it is), you can accomplish the same objective, but with a softer sell. Instead of giving the special offer in every email, you focus on giving great free information, or telling stories for the first two emails, and then you only give the sales offer in the last email. Here’s what that kind of a product launch can look like visually:

You then continue to talk about your product in your blog posts and your videos – always sending people to the landing page, or sales page for your product. Perhaps at the end of your next teleseminar, you’re going to promote it again with a special offer. But you won’t promote it again to your list (unless they are new sign-ups) for at least 4 – 6 months. This is how you avoid burning out your list and making people annoyed so that they unsubscribe.

Now I know that a lot of Internet marketers are way more aggressive with their lists than I am. But how many of them do you think have retained the same subscribers for over a decade? And how many of them have a conversion rate from their sign-up forms of 18 – 20%? I’m in it for the long-term and my people know that and love me for it. Most of the Internet marketers giving advice today won’t be around in 10 or 20 years, they are primarily interested in scoring big and moving on.

Of course, you should email your list at the frequency that feels right to you. And by all means, test it and see what gets the best results for your particular niche.

Here’s a Freedomite’s experience from the receiving end:

Once I got familiar with the processes of Internet marketing through LTYF, I became hypersensitive to it being used on me. I am already conditioned to shut down as soon as I feel advertised at, so this added awareness was fascinating to me. My own inbox was a perfect place to learn about marketing – with the curiosity of a potential marketer, but from the point of view of the consumer! I am interested in holistic health and fitness, so I sign up for a lot of freebies as I do my research, and subsequently end up on a ton of lists of people in the same industry.

I noticed that I quickly grew tired of almost anyone who emailed me daily or even bi-weekly, and just unsubscribed from their lists. Their stuff seemed repetitive, insincere, and a waste of my time, making health promises I knew were unfounded or just manipulative.

I also noticed that because I knew how digital delivery worked (i.e. that digital products are effectively infinite), if someone tried to word it to sound like they had limited numbers or copies of a digital product, or otherwise tried to bring the rains of fabricated scarcity down to encourage the sale, I’d call BS immediately. That might work for first-time buyers, but people get savvy quick and the more you rely on assumed ignorance, the more suspicious you’ll make your customers. And suspicion does not a sale make. So I learned that sincerity and respect for your customer – and their intelligence – is paramount! The inbox is a very personal place, so Internet marketers have to be aware of the psychological effects of their approaches.

The same was true for sensationalized (and, eventually, repetitive) subject lines and selly emails, or people who sent me affiliate links to everything under the sun, including protocols and guides that were in direct conflict with that person’s product and philosophy. It made me wonder – if this is the best thing since sliced bread, and so was last week’s special offer, where does that leave your product? It just gets lumped in there with everyone else’s Super Magical Amazing Best Exclusive Life-Changing Offer That Takes 2 Minutes and Tastes Exactly Like Chocolate – eventually, my nervous system is flooded and I no longer feel any response to your buzz words and promises.

Basically, a lot of people emailing me had gone affiliate-happy and were trying to milk their lists for everything and anything, and I noticed that both the frequency and the impersonal/manipulative/insincere/formulaic quality pissed me off and made me jaded. And the only people I ended up buying from were the people who stood out – who seemed more sincere, less grabby, who gave more away for free (so I could really trust they knew their stuff), and who didn’t email me constantly. The people whose emails I actually looked for, and wondered when I didn’t hear from them for a while – those separated the wheat from the chaff for me. So I guess I also learned how personal automated messages can actually be – and that there’s actually an art to all this.>

Most importantly, I realized that people who just were themselves were the ones I inherently trusted – and liked, and bought from – the most. And I realized that, when done like this, email marketing was totally okay with me, instead of being an insidious invasion of my inbox. Which gave me tremendous insight and comfort around the construction of my own eventual email campaigns…”

Segmenting Your List or Permission Marketing

If you are able to segment up your list into the people who are specifically interested in your product (if you have an email marketing program like Infusionsoft), then you can send a longer series of emails to get them excited about your new thing – without ticking anyone off.

If you can segment your list, then you send out your first email announcing a freebie related to the topic of your new product. Everyone that opts-in (signs up) for the freebie is put (segmented) into a new list of people who have expressed an interest in your topic. You can now send more than 3 emails to these people without risking having them unsubscribe, because they have clearly expressed an interest in your topic or product.

Here’s what a longer, detailed product launch – where you are able to tag and segment your list into a group of interested people – may look like visually:

Long Detailed Product Launch

As I mentioned, if you have a high-priced offering, or a training course, or complex offering, then you need to take longer to explain to people all the details and benefits your product or program will give them.

You need to communicate, bit by bit, over time, all the great benefits and address all their doubts, questions and objections to joining you in this fantastic experience.

Running a campaign like this also requires that you have a good email management platform in place. And you will also need other tools, like a way to host a teleseminar, or a call-in Question and Answer session.

So don’t worry if you don’t have the confidence or framework in place to do a launch like this yet. This is one of those units that you can download, or come back to in the future when you are ready.

For those of you who have already had your site up for a while and you’re doing the Listen To Your Freedom program to increase your revenues and lessen your work hours, then this may be the ideal next step for you.

Know that I have paid $3000 for Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula and tested his and other marketers’ complex systems extensively. What I’m presenting you with here is what actually works, even though it may not be as exhaustive. Longer doesn’t mean better!

So, for a more complex product launch, you need to have at least these five elements in place:

1. Host a call-in Q&A session – you can do this via Skype or a teleseminar hosting platform. Tell an exciting or entertaining story that is going to make people want to join you on the call. Show them how being on the call is really going to help them with something they’ve been struggling with.

2. Host a webinar where you give people further help and instruction – really give away some valuable information for free. But, because the content is directly related to your product, you will also be telling and showing people everything that they will receive and the benefits of each aspect of your product or program.Or at least prepare a video – remember you need to cater to different styles of learning. Send them to your landing page, or sales page, at the end of the webinar or video to read more about your product and have the chance to purchase it.

3. Give two to three freebies – where the free item is directly related to the item you’re selling. You want to give people a valuable gift for free (audio, video, instruction page, etc.) and also give them a taste of the quality of products you produce, or what working with you (in the case of a training program, consulting package, or workshop) would be like. Again, link to your landing page, or sales page, after giving them the gift, where they can read more about your product and maybe purchase it.

4. When you send the freebies, you also give them detailed information on the benefits of your product or program – just like in the webinar, but this time it’s in written form. Try to communicate using stories, or testimonials, so you don’t come off as “selly”. Perhaps you also give them the chance to download a PDF with full product info, or link to a video. Send them to your landing page, or sales page, to read more about your product and purchase it.

5. You must have an email management platform that allows you to sub-divide your list, so that you only continue to email people who have expressed some interest in your first or second email on the topic. If you don’t take the time to segment your list into people who are interested, and people who are not interested, then you risk annoying the uninterested people and having a large number of your list unsubscribe.When you email the people on your “interested” list, be sure and have an ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom that takes them out of this product launch, but ideally, not out of your main database. Remember that every email you send, must have an ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom as this is required by United States CAN-SPAM laws.

Swipe From Others

One of the best ways to figure out what kind of product launch you like and which formats and emails suit your message, is to subscribe to other people’s email lists so that you are on the receiving end of one of their product launches.

Always, always look to your competitors or people you admire to see how they are doing things. Then you can pick and choose the elements that resonate with you. You can also use their emails as templates to design your own.

Successful people who are good at doing product launches include:

• Marie Forleo
• Eben Pagan
• Ryan Deiss
• Derek Halpern

You could just get on their email list, then the next time they do a product launch, save all their emails to you in a separate folder, and then pretty much copy each one (tailoring to your product and your audience of course) to form your own product launch.

No, this is not plagiarizing, because you are changing all the words to suit your product, or program and your audience. What you are swiping is the framework, or the concept behind the sequence – and that is done all the time, in art, in science and yes, in business.

Swipe From Me!

You can also receive the full product launch sequence for either my healthy gut guide, 7 Steps To A Healthier Gut

Or sign up for Jini’s 7 Freedom Steps at Listen To Your Freedom (if you don’t have it already) and copy that. BUT be sure and use a different email from the one you first signed up with – if you are already on my list, you won’t receive the same email sequence as a newbie.

Then save every email I send you into a separate folder and perhaps even print them out. Spread them out in front of you when you get to the end and you will have a step-by-step guide of what to do and how to do it.

The benefit to signing up to my list again (use a different email) is that you will experience the timing of the emails and get a feeling for the process.

As you receive each one – you could swipe the framework and come up with your own email (launching your product to your people), so that by the end of seven weeks, you have your own launch sequence completed!

Also, keep in mind you don’t need to have seven emails – you could have three, or five, or ten. Whatever feels right to you and whatever YOU would like to receive.

Your Landing Page

Whether you choose to do a simple product launch, or a more complex product launch, it’s a good idea to use your email sequence to drive your people to a landing page, or to a sales page, where you tell them in detail about your product and offer them the chance to buy it.

And don’t worry, we’ll be talking extensively about what to put on your sales page when you’re ready to make one!

So to summarize, for both the simple product launch, or the long, detailed product launch (outlined above), your sequence will look like this

1. Email your list. OR Create a compelling sign-up offer – then email out your timed (one email per week) launch sequence to your opt-ins.
2. Create a landing page, or sales page, on your website, which you link to in all your emails in the sequence.
3. Give out the URL for that landing page everywhere you talk about your product, in your blog, teleseminars, interviews, etc.

For example, let’s say I wanted to follow this format for Listen To Your Freedom. But instead of having just a landing page, I wanted to spice it up by adding a squeeze page as well (which pretty much forces them to give me their name and email if they want to see more), before I will tell them what the course is about.

Why would I do this? Well, the situations this type of “squeeze” tactic would be appropriate for (and actually benefit the visitor) is when your product is too complicated or detailed to explain adequately in a webpage, or one email. If you have a high-priced product, people really need to understand WHY your product or service is worth every penny you’re asking. And it’s pretty hard to communicate all the benefits they will experience in just an email or two.

So in this instance, I may want to have a Landing Page that gives a brief outline, with top benefits offered (video is a great way to communicate this) and one that really identifies my ideal customer. Like this one:

1. Landing Page

Next, when they click the OPEN button on this Landing Page, they are sent over to this Squeeze Page – where the primary purpose is to give them sufficient reason/motivation to give me their name and email. I do this by offering them something valuable:

2. Squeeze Page

Lastly, now that I have their name and email, so I can continue to build the relationship, I give them access to the Sales Page. Although I do not expect anyone to buy the program at this point! People need more time and space and they need to actually experience the power of my stuff before they’ll part with this kind of money. And I understand that. That’s why it’s crucial that I offered them something valuable for free first on my Squeeze Page, so they can get a really good sense/taste of how I can help them.

3. Sales Page

In the emails I send them ongoing – where I continue to give them excellent, valuable free stuff to develop and deepen our relationship – I will continue to include a link to this sales page. That way, when they are ready, they have easy access to take action right away and purchase.

However, when you’re first starting out, or if you have a lower priced product, then you may only need a sales page with an opt-in offer on that page – which can also be called your landing page, since they don’t go anywhere else afterwards.

Your landing page (which can also be your sales page), is very simply where you speak from your heart about your product. Where you address all the pain points, or problems your visitor is facing, and you tell them about your solution(s).

Make sure you also put your opt-in offer on your landing/sales page. Maybe that person came from a blog link, or was referred by a friend, so make sure they can always opt-in to your launch sequence to learn more about you and start developing a trusting relationship with you.

One point: If you want to build suspense, you don’t have to link to your sales page in every email – you may choose to save that for the last two emails. Whichever way you feel is best.

Where Should I Host My Landing Page?

At this point you may be wondering: Is it best to host my landing page on a separate URL, or incorporate it into my main site? And should I have the main menu showing, or not – so that people cannot click away from the page?

Some people have a landing page that only offers one option – for example they want the visitor to sign-up for a free audio, or video. There are no other options or links available on the page. That’s what I showed you in the Listen To Your Freedom example above. Statistically, that method works.

Personally, I don’t like to use this method unless I have to! I don’t like to force people to do things. I prefer to give people a choice, trusting that when the time is right, they will get with me.

But as I explained in the LTYF example above, there are times when this approach is actually the best way to serve your visitor and provide for their needs. You may have a product or program that is ideally suited to that kind of landing page – listen to your gut.

If you do go that route, then after opting-in, the person will then be transferred (automatic url-forward) to your sales page where you will give them all the details about your product, or seminar, or course.

Some people like to use a paid plugin for WordPress called OptimizePress to design and host their landing pages, so check them out as they are a great option. You do need to check first that OptimizePress will integrate easily with your shopping cart, or email marketing program though.

If you are with Infusionsoft, you can create landing pages easily within your account.

For myself, I usually just create a Page on my site and I pay my designer to create some nice forms, charts, boxes, or graphics for me, as desired.

There is no right/wrong choice here – just ask yourself: If I was coming to this page, what would I like to see? How would I like to be treated? And then just do what YOU would like! It really is that simple.

Whichever way you choose to go, make sure your landing page, or sales page:

1. Looks really good; inviting and attractive.
2. Works well and looks good on mobile devices (responsive design) like cell phones, iPads, tablets, etc.
3. Make sure your page loads quickly (1 second or less) and any audio or video plays instantly, without glitches.

If you don’t want to link to a dedicated landing page, you could also link to your shop listing for the product, or your Amazon listing.

Get Your Affiliates To Promote Your Program or Product

Here’s a way to ensure that the people you would love to joint-venture with (have them promote your product to their list) agree to do so: By making them part of your product!

For example, if your product is a teleseminar series, then you can invite Guru X to be one of the people you interview for the series.

Think about it. If Guru X is featured in your series, is he likely to send an email or two out to his list (with his affiliate link) telling them about the series? Most likely, yes.

Here’s an email template I used to procure guests for Listen To Your Freedom. Feel free to swipe it! Remember that swiping doesn’t mean plagiarize; it means use it as a template, a guide, and change all the words to your own.

***********************

Hi X,

I’m a big fan of your…[describe what I love about their book, product, blog, etc.]

I currently have a list of 45,000 from my health site (ListenToYourGut.com) and I would love to introduce them to what you are doing.

Let me explain: After repeated requests from my readers of, HOW DO I GET YOUR LIFE? I created a 24-Module, comprehensive business training program that shows people how to build an automated, online business – at their own pace, doing what they love – to create their idea of freedom.

So I am in the final stages of creating and uploading this program – called Listen To Your Freedom – to the site and I realized that an interview with you would really be great in Module X.xxx.

I already have content from Seth Godin, Pamela Slim, Pat Flynn and Bernadette Jiwa, so rest assured you would be in good company.

Well, let me know if that interests you and of course, whatever we create you are also free to use however you wish with your list. I’m thinking a 45-minute interview about [insert topic] would really showcase your expertise.

My style is fun, good energy, down-to-earth and honest/transparent. My primary goal is get great tools out to people in a dialogue of trust and openness.

I look forward to hearing from you (i.e. please say yes!),

Jini

p.s. Here’s a recent interview I did with Annabel Fisher on How To Leverage & Multi-Purpose Your Content, so you can get a feel for what I’m doing:
[link to mp3 interview]

***********************

There are three things I want you to notice about this email:

1. Notice this sentence in my email that lends social proof (evidence from peers) to what I’m asking them to do:

I already have content from Seth Godin, Pamela Slim, Pat Flynn and Bernadette Jiwa, so rest assured you would be in good company.

They probably assumed I also had interviews with these well-known biz people. But I did not say that, I said “content” and what I actually mean there is that I quoted from their blogs or books. But of course, I’m happy for them to assume!

2. Notice the first sentence of my email:

I’m a big fan of your…[describe what I love about their book, product, blog, etc.]

I did not talk about ME. I talked about them and what I loved about their work. Think about it. If I started out talking about me, it screams out ‘this person wants something from me!’ So right away my email recipient would take an energetic step back and become wary or jaded.

By starting out with what I love about their work, they are feeling appreciated and I’m also showing them that I ‘get’ them and I’ve done my homework (inspires confidence).

3. Notice my second paragraph:

I currently have a list of 45,000 from my health site (ListenToYourGut.com) and I would love to introduce them to what you are doing.

I have a big point of leverage when approaching people because I have a large email list. But if you didn’t have a list, or only a small one, you could replace this sentence with:

I specialize in [what you do, eg. I would write: natural healing for gut disorders] and I would love to introduce my readers to what you are doing.

You would then go on to describe the product you are creating (as I did) and if the idea is exciting, or appealing, or admirable – combined with points 1 and 2, they will most likely agree to the interview.

You can use this same type of email to approach people you would like to do a teleseminar with, or feature on your blog. Just remember to always open by talking about what you love about them, or their work, or a specific article they wrote. Then move onto talking about your idea, your venture, or your proposition.

Your Turn

Let’s take everything you’ve learned in this unit and put it into action – by planning out your first (or next) product launch!

 

---

Are you excited about officially launching your first product?! Let’s plan it out… Choose ONE of your products that you want to launch and write the name or title down here:

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

Is this product suited to a simple product launch, or is it an expensive or large product that needs a more complex product launch?

 

 

Do you need to create an attractive, compelling opt-in offer (freebie) to get things rolling, or are you just going to email your existing list, or both?

How many emails are you going to include in your launch sequence?___________________

Are you going to drive people to a landing page, sales pages, shop listing, or Amazon listing? What is the URL?

 

Now plan out your launch sequence emails – what are you going to say? What freebies
are you going to o er? Are you going to link to any blog posts, or videos? Pretend you are writing to your friend or cousin and write out each of the emails in your sequence (or at least bulletpoint plan them here and do the writing in your email program, to save yourself time):

 

 

---

Remember that when it comes time to write and design your product sales page, that we have really great instructions for what to include, how to price your product and how to position it to your ideal customer.

Okay, now let’s get into some specifics about selling more books – because I know many of you are going to start with a book or eBook as your first product. And why not? An eBook is one of the easiest and cheapest products to create, yet has great value and positions you as an expert in your niche. Onto the next unit…!

 

 

Even if all you can draw is stick men, YES, you can create your own covers (or ads) for your digital content (audios, videos, eBooks, online courses or programs, etc.).

This is an awesome way to put your own energy and intent into your work – which will make it more authentic, powerful and unique. It is also the ideal method to use if you cannot yet afford a full-fledged graphic designer!

Of course, when you give a designer a brief and then get them to modify it until it is exactly what you envisioned, you are also putting your own energy and intention into the process. But when you create the actual cover yourself (or maybe just a piece of it) you are achieving the same result, but at a lowered cost.

The best way to find a graphic designer to help you with the final version, or to polish what you’ve done, is to post the job on Elance.com. Do not even look at a company with a Feedback rating lower than 4.5 stars, or 90% positive. Fiverr.com is another good marketplace to try, and very cheap.

And then look at their actual portfolio to see if they have ALREADY done the type of design you want. Only pick someone who already “gets” and has designed your idea of a good cover.

There is no charge to you to post your project and receive quotes for the job on Elance (the provider pays Elance the brokerage commission). I outsource everything now. My long-term computer programmer for $20/hour is in Pune, India, my latest logo design project was done in Buenos Aires, my forum management (to keep out porn, spam etc.) is done in Assam for $5/hour, my virtual assistants for customer service are in Los Angeles and Washington, etc. etc.

With Fiverr, there is also no registration fee and you simply pay for the Gig with the provider you choose. The money is held until the provider has delivered your project to you.

Book Cover Design

My publishing company (Caramal Publishing) has been running since 1999, and we’ve published 18 books, plus CDs and DVDs, so I’ve had a fair bit of experience and tried a number of different methods.

Your book cover design will vary depending on whether you are only selling an eBook, or if you are also selling a printed book.

An eBook cover is much simpler as you only need the front cover. The design also needs to be cleaner, since it needs to be readable when it is thumbnail size. Here’s an example of two books on Kindle, as they come up in search results, the first one is done well and instantly readable, the second one may look fine in a bookstore, but it is very difficult to read on Kindle:

Amazon’s Kindle has a place where you can easily design and create a cover for your eBook. You can make one based on an image you provide, or select an image from their gallery of stock images, customizable with a variety of different layouts and fonts:

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=201113520

If you want to get the interior layout of your eBook or Kindle book formatted and a cover design done, definitely use Elance.com to source a cheap-as-chips designer from India, Russia, China, etc. In fact, due to the competition in this marketplace you can often find a North American designer who will quote for only a little bit more.

There is no charge to you to post your project and receive quotes for the job (the provider pays Elance the brokerage commission). If you use Elance.com it will be very cheap to get your eBook, DVD, or CD cover and interior ready and available.

You can also use Elance to have your book formatted and uploaded to Kindle – which can be quite the hassle to do yourself.

Another great place to get your book cover design done, is at BookBaby. They have basic or deluxe design packages at different prices, with a very fast turnaround time. And they can also take care of formatting and uploading your book to Kindle, Nook, Smashwords and other e-reader platforms.

You should also take a look at the eBook designers on Fiverr.com or Microlancer.com as it’s very fast to scroll down the page and find someone quickly whose style you like, and what they charge is listed right there.

For example, this designer from Bulgaria (took me about 4 minutes to find her) shows a great versatility in design, but all have a clean, professional look for – wait for it – only $70 complete!

And last – but not least – don’t forget CreateSpace! Both CreateSpace and Kindle offer free eBook cover creators – where you login and create your own cover from templates they provide. They’re not great, but you will get a decent book cover. Here’s a sample of some CreateSpace cover templates:

The main drawback to using CreateSpace template covers is they do not print on the spine. So when your book sits on a shelf, the spine is blank and you can’t tell which book it is.

Hiring a Designer

If you want to have something more professional – and also make sure it doesn’t look like anybody else’s, then you may want to have a graphic designer do an eBook, or CD, or DVD cover for you.

Or, if you have a series of audios, or DVDs, or ebooks – so each ebook is different, yet they’re part of a series – then you may want to have a designer prepare a unique template for you that you can use for that entire series.

That’s what I did for my Jini’s Healing Guide eBook series. I sourced an eBook cover designer on Elance.com who prepared 6 different designs for me for $60. I then chose this one for my cover design for this series, which sells in my Shoppe and on Kindle:

I then use this same cover for all my eBooks in this series and I just switch out the photo and title. I purchased images from fotalia.com or shutterstock.com, but if you were into photography you could absolutely use your own photos. Here’s another example:

Within 1 week of getting five of these eBooks up on Kindle, I was selling one per day. Not big revenue, but $148/month for automated revenue is nice! Over time, this will increase substantially – once people start leaving reviews and my eBooks rank higher in the Kindle search results.

Here’s what they look like side-by-side in my Shoppe – you can see why I wanted them to look visually distinct, yet also have it obvious that they are part of a series (think Chicken Soup for the Soul – good marketing strategy!):

I then took one of the other designs and had him tweak it to give me a cover for my What You Need To Know About… series. He only charged me an additional $10 to tweak the template design to what I liked:

Here’s what this series looks like in my Shoppe:

Are you getting some ideas and inspiration for your own CDs, DVDs, programs, eBooks – or eBooks you want to create down the road? I hope so!

Remember, to contract a designer to do your book cover or series template for you, you simply hire an eBook designer on Elance.com or Fiverr.com or EnvatoStudio.com

 

Create Your Own Cover

If you know graphic design and have the tools and programs you need, of course you’re way beyond the rest of us and can probably make something awesome in half an hour! But if you’re on the rest-of-us side of that equation, there are still tons of options. If money is super tight, or, if you have a subject matter that lends itself to a more artsy cover, you can easily create your own cover for your book, CD, or DVD. Here are two examples of covers created from hand-drawn artwork:

CD

 BOOK

You’ll have to balance your design aesthetic with your budget and then choose the best design service you can afford. If you can’t afford to pay for design, then don’t let that stop you! At the end of the day, your site visitors and people from your email list KNOW you and they know the quality of your content. They will not be put off purchasing by the fact that your book has a plain cover.

You can also learn, or teach yourself, to use design programs like Photoshop, or try one of the great design tools that are cropping up like Canva, which you can use for free.

So let’s look at some ways you can design and create your own covers for your books, CDs, programs, DVDs, courses and tutorials. Let’s get your creative mind whirling!

There are a number of items that need to be in place for you to be considered the legal owner of your creative work – anything literary, musical, dramatic or instructional. Obviously, your creative work can be in physical or digital form. Before you start selling your book, or program or audio in the marketplace – or even giving it away for free – you want to be legally recognized and protected as the owner and creator of that piece of content. So before we get started, let’s just go over the different types of products and how they can be protected:

Copyright provides protection for literary, artistic, dramatic or musical works (including computer programs) and other subject-matter known as performer’s performances, sound recordings and communication signals. Patents cover new inventions (process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter) or any new and useful improvement to an existing invention. Trade-marks are words, designs, or any combination, used to distinguish the goods or services of one person or organization from those of others in the marketplace. Industrial designs are the visual features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament, or any combination of these features, applied to a finished article. Integrated circuit topographies refer to the three-dimensional configuration of electronic circuits embodied in integrated circuit products or layout designs. The only type of protection we’re going to cover here is copyright, because any of the others require the assistance of a lawyer.

Your Copyright Notice

A copyright is a legal notice, but for anything in digital form, like eBooks, it is surprisingly easy to establish. You simply put your copyright at the beginning of your eBook. If it is a Report or white paper, or technical, or informational PDF, then you may also want to put the copyright notice in the footer of every page. This is what I have done for the LTYF Modules in PDF format – my copyright is in the footer of every page.

For a digital MP3 file, you could either speak the copyright at the beginning of the audio, or list it on the download page, include it in the download email, and on the sales page.

For a digital (online) video, you could either show the copyright notice at the beginning and end of the video, list it on the download page, include it in the download email, and on the sales page. A basic copyright notice looks like this: © 20XX [your name]. All Rights Reserved. [ company name]. [ website url] For example: © 2014 Jini Patel Thompson. All Rights Reserved. Listen To Your Gut Enterprises Inc. www.ListenToYourFreedom.com

To insert your copyright notice in the footer of every page, you add it to your Word .doc (before you save it as a pdf). You click on VIEW -> Header and Footer. Then scroll down the footer at the bottom of the page and enter your copyright notice and center it on the page. Then click X to close the footer box. You’re done.

For a physical, printed book, there is no requirement to register your copyright in the U.S., but it is a service provided by the Library of Congress as a means to record claims to copyright. If you ever have a dispute about your copyrighted work, some experts maintain your best evidence is going to be the registration you made, and the date it was entered, to show you are the originator of the work. In most countries you can also submit and have a copy of your actual (physical, printed) book, DVD, or CD kept on file with whatever government office handles that – just ask Google! Type this into Google: how to register book copyright in [your country] or how to register DVD copyright in [your country] For a printed book, it’s a good idea to register your copyright, even though it isn’t required, for these reasons:

1. Copyright registration will put the facts of your copyright into the public record
2. In the event of legal action, your registered work may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees
3. If you register your copyright within 5 years of publication, it is considered prima facie evidence (self-evident from the registration) in a court of law

You can get all the details here: www.copyright.gov

If the legal registration process sounds like too much work for you, then an easier way to at least get some additional protection is to place a copy of your printed book, DVD, CD, or eBook (print it out) into an envelope, address it to your lawyer, write on the outside of the envelope: DO NOT OPEN – MUST REMAIN SEALED, and mail it to your lawyer. The postmark will date stamp it for you and your lawyer can store it for you in his/her files in the event of any legal dispute.

Now, here’s where I’m going to speak ‘off the record’! If you have put a copyright notice on all of your products from day one, you have been issued an ISBN number for your books, DVDs, or CDs and perhaps you even have a copy of your book or DVD stored in your country’s central library… do you think you have set a pretty good legal stamp on the fact that you are the author of that work? I think so. Personally, I wonder if it would change things that much if I also paid to have a copyright certificate as well? Especially when the government agency who issues your copyright plainly states, “please note that the Copyright Office is not responsible for policing or checking on registered works and their use, nor can it guarantee that the legitimacy of ownership or the originality of a work will never be questioned.”? What’s the value of a “copyright” when the legal, issuing body has not even checked whether the work has already been copyrighted by someone else?

This is the process they use for patents and trademarks – part of registering a trademark or patent involves the lawyer conducting a thorough search to ensure that no one else has already registered that patent or trademark. With a copyright, there is no such cross-checking and investigation process, you just mail in the form and the fee.

In my personal opinion, if I was a songwriter, or a playwright, then it would be worth the time and money for me to register an official copyright – just to have a layer of protection. Because in both these fields, my work would first be shopped around to industry before being publicly acknowledged as mine. Therefore, it would be easy for an unscrupulous agent, or executive, or fellow writer to swipe my piece and correspondingly difficult for me to prove that I am the author.

In both these cases though, I would also mail a sealed, postmarked copy to my lawyer. But for a book, or eBook, or DVD that I hold the ISBN for, that carries a copyright notice, that I’ve been blogging about, shooting videos about, and people are discussing it in public forums; then personally I feel a good ownership trail has been laid down for that work that would pre-date any infringers. I would also look at the likelihood of someone legally challenging my work, or of me taking someone to court for copyright infringement. But of course, you must check with your lawyer and make your own legal decisions! Your opinion and risk comfort level may be very different from mine and I encourage you to follow your lawyer’s advice.

As I understand it, there is no official copyright registry in either the UK or Australia, you simply use the standard copyright notice (as I have shown you above) on your books and the fact that you hold the copyright is considered an ‘automatic right’.

Here’s what the copyright page looks like on my 480 page, hardcover book with CD-rom, Listen To Your Gut. You can see my copyright notice, my ISBN, and my book registration data with the Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication. Note the wording of my comprehensive copyright notice here and feel free to swipe:  International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

The ISBN number provides a standard way to identify your book, instructional, entertainment, or documentary DVD or CD, especially for bookstores and libraries. You will need an ISBN number and bar code if you want to sell your book in any kind of bookstore, either a physical store, or on the internet.

One agency per country is designated to assign ISBNs for the publishers and self-publishers located in that country. To find your country’s ISBN agency, type this into Google: ISBN agency [your country] The ISBN number ties into a catalog of all (registered) books in print. This catalog lists the publisher, access and purchasing information, and descriptive data about each book.

ISBN means International Standard Book Number. An ISBN is a number, used like a serial number so that bookstores can accurately order books. An ISBN is not a bar code. You can receive the ISBN number for your book, DVD or CD (but not music CD) by contacting your country’s ISBN Agency.

Here are the agencies for the U.S. and Canada:

United States R.R. Bowker, LLC – US ISBN Agency
630 Central Ave.
New Providence, NJ 07974
Phone: (+1) 888-269-5372
Fax: (+1 908) 219-0188
Contact: John Purcell
Email: isbn-san@bowker.com
Web: www.isbn.org

Canadian ISBN Agency Library and Archives Canada
550, boul. de la Cité
Gatineau, QC K1A 0N4
Telephone: (819) 994-6872 / (866) 578-7777
Fax: (819) 934-6777
Email: isbn@bac-lac.gc.ca
Web: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca

Not many retailers require an ISBN for eBooks. Smashwords is one that does – if you want to get in their Premium Catalogue, but they can also assign you a free ISBN. Kindle doesn’t require your eBook to have an ISBN, Kobo books doesn’t and Barnes & Noble doesn’t. So you really don’t need to buy an ISBN for an eBook when you are first starting out. Once you get rolling and have a little more time and money, you can get ISBN’s for all your eBooks and add them at that time.

You are advised to have an ISBN for a printed book, especially if you are selling in retail outlets, like Amazon, bookstores, CreateSpace, etc. Some retailers (like CreateSpace) will offer you a free, or cheap ISBN. But this means that your book is registered with CreateSpace as the publisher, NOT with your company as the publisher. If you do this, then your book can only be sold through CreateSpace, Amazon and the bookstores and libraries that CreateSpace distributes to. If you wanted to make your book available to other stores, or libraries, you would have to publish another version of it, with your own company’s ISBN.

Here’s a visual chart to make this easier to understand: Technically, you are supposed to issue a new/different ISBN for each version of your book. So your printed book has one ISBN, your eBook has a different ISBN, your Kindle book yet another ISBN, and so on. But as I told you above, many digital retailers don’t require you to have an ISBN in order to carry your book, so it is not crucial – although that may change at any time!

Barcodes

Once you have your ISBN, you can either get your barcode through your ISBN Agency, or online at a place like SimplyBarcodes.net – which supplies barcodes for both North America and International sales. Your barcode (also called EAN barcode or UPC barcode) appears on the back of your book, or on your product packaging, it can look like this: Encoded within is whatever information you wish to have encoded, like price, description, ISBN number, etc. If you are selling your book, DVD, CD or products on your own site, you do not need to have a barcode on your products. However, if you are selling on Amazon (for example) you need to have either a bar code, or an ISBN. If you are selling in a physical retail store, you will need to have both an ISBN and a bar code. Obviously, if you are selling teddy bears (for example) in a store or on Amazon you don’t need an ISBN, you only need a bar code.

Okay, back to ISBN’s – which we’re nearly done with. Here are the official answers to common questions from the US ISBN Agency, Bowker:

Why do I need an ISBN?

If you are selling your book on your own, you are not required to have an ISBN. If you want to sell your book in bookstores, place it with distributors and wholesalers, and put it in libraries, you are required to have an ISBN on your book.

Can a self-publisher obtain an ISBN?

Yes, a self-publisher is a publisher: one who is undertaking the financial risk to bring a book to market and coordinating everything involved: advertising, marketing, printing, order fulfillment, etc. 

How does the process work?

First, a publisher applies for an ISBN. The ISBN Agency emails the ISBN to the publisher. The ISBN is placed on the copyright page and is encoded on a bar code, which is placed on the back cover of the book. Then, when the book is about to be sold, the publisher registers the title in Books in Print at www.bowkerlink.com

What happens if another publisher wants to publish my book?

The new publisher will put their ISBN on your book and the ISBN you were using will no longer be on the book or used at all. An ISBN identifies both the title and the publisher from which it can be ordered.

Can I reuse my ISBN?

No, once an ISBN is assigned to a book, the ISBN cannot be reused. If the content of the book changes, a new ISBN must be used. If the title of the book is changed after its publication, then a new ISBN must be used.

Can I sell or give my ISBN to someone else?

No, you cannot sell or give an ISBN to anyone. ISBNs cannot be transferred. An official ISBN Agency is the only one who can assign ISBNs.

Why should I register my title in Books in Print?

Books in Print is the main directory that bookstores and libraries use to locate books they want to order for their customers. If you want your book to be found and ordered, you should register it in Books in Print. 

Do you also assign Library of Congress catalogue numbers and handle copyright?

The U.S. ISBN Agency does not assign Library of Congress catalog numbers. The Library of Congress does this. The ISBN Agency is not a part of the Library of Congress. You can reach the Library of Congress at www.loc.gov. Copyright is also handled by the Library of Congress, or by The United States Copyright Office www.copyright.gov.

Do I need a bar code?

You will need a bar code if you are going to sell your book in stores. There are several different bar code systems in the United States. The kind of bar code used in bookstores is called the EAN 13 bar code. You can purchase an EAN 13 bar code at the time you order your ISBN or you can get one afterward from a bar code supplier, or www.bowkerbarcode.com.

What products are eligible for ISBNs?

ISBNs may be assigned to books and certain other items commonly found in bookstores. Non-book items eligible for ISBNs include ebooks, audiobooks, calendars, bookmarks, software, greeting cards, and instructional and documentary DVDs and videos. ISBNs may never be assigned to music CDs, articles of clothing, foods, medicine, or stuffed animals, among other items.

What is a distributor? What is a wholesaler? What is a retailer?

A distributor is a business that has a signed exclusive contract with a publisher to sell their books. The distributor warehouses the books, fulfills orders, and issues invoices. A wholesaler buys and sells books without an exclusive agreement with the publisher. The wholesaler consolidates orders to retailers. A retailer sells books to the public. A retailer can be a physical store or it can be online.

Legal Book Deposit

In most countries there is also a system whereby you can send a copy or two of your hardcover or softcover book to your country’s head library for registration and deposit. In some countries it is optional, in other countries it is legally required. This is another practice that I feel helps establish copyright, but the stated reason for it is so that each country can have a permanent record or collection of its citizens’ intellectual and artistic output – a record of all published works. In Canada, you automatically receive your forms for Legal Deposit submission after your ISBN is issued and you are legally required to send in your books. In other countries it is voluntary.

Book Disclaimer Notice

If your books involve content that may be construed as giving advice – especially in an area where only certain professions can legally give advice – then you should make sure your book has a good legal disclaimer at the front of the book. You can either hire a lawyer to provide you with a good disclaimer, or you can swipe one from a big publisher in your industry – who has no doubt paid a lawyer to come up with a good one! Simply find a book on the same topic as yours, copy the disclaimer and then customize it to you. For example, here’s the Disclaimer from my health books:

DISCLAIMER

This book is designed to provide information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher and author are not engaged in rendering medical, naturopathic, homeopathic or other professional services. If medical or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes both typographical and in content. Therefore this book should be used only as a general guide and not as the ultimate source of information on intestinal health. Furthermore, this book contains information on IBD/IBS only up to the printing date. The purpose of this book is to educate and entertain. The author and Caramal Publishing shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. If you do not wish to be bound by this disclaimer, you may return this book to the publisher within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

Note the last line of this disclaimer: If you do not wish to be bound by this disclaimer, you may return this book to the publisher within 30 days of purchase for a full refund. This line was swiped from a self-publishing how-to book – the author claimed it would set a blanket legal protection against being sued by any readers. By giving them the opportunity to return the book for a full refund if they did not wish to be bound by the disclaimer, it sets the precedent that by NOT returning the book, they are legally indicating their acceptance to be bound by the disclaimer. Sounded good to me! Thankfully, no one has sued me, or even threatened to sue me since my first health book was published in 2000. Fingers crossed! Here’s another disclaimer taken from a financial book. In this case, it was not titled with anything, but simply appears on the page in a box:

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Again, let’s simplify all this legal mumbo-jumbo right down to the bare bones – even if it’s boring, it doesn’t have to be scary.

Luckily there are only a few things you need to publish your book for sale, and protect your rights. First thing, create your copyright notice – just fill in the blanks! Example:

© 2015 Jini Patel Thompson. Caramal Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

© [ current year ] [your full name]. [your company name ]. All Rights Reserved.

Now do yours!

© _____________________________________________________________________

 

Then order your barcode, and register and purchase your own ISBN, or use CreateSpace’s ISBN and sell only to their network.

Finally, swipe a Disclaimer from a book with similar content to yours (or use one of the Disclaimers provided) and put it in the front pages. When you’re formatting – or getting someone else to format – your book, Front Matter appears in this order: Reviews, Disclaimer & Copyright Info, Table of Contents, Acknowledgement.

 

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Does all this legal stuff sound like a hassle? Do you long to have a big publishing house just handle all the details for you? Well, let’s talk about the differences between self-publishing and finding a mainstream publisher to publish your book for you. Hint: I lean heavily in favour of self-publishing!