getting fire departments to recommend your book: 3 secrets, 2 links, 1 quote

Reader,
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Let’s get right to it:

3 Secrets:

1. How Daniel Pink accidentally marketed his book

Daniel Pink wrote a book titled The Power of Regret.

He had 16,000+ people fill out his survey on regret as research for the book.

He included responses throughout the book.

Although seemingly just collecting responses for the survey, he was also building an email list to promote the book once it went live.

He DID NOT intend for it to work this way but it did.

Think how you can bring people along for the ride. He paid survey company Qualtrics to run the survey for him.

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2. Time Blocking

Whether you or someone working for you is managing your book marketing, time blocking is the way to go. For example, I use Google Calendar to block out what I’ll be working on when. You can use whatever calendar tool you prefer, but plan out what you’re going to get done when.

– Block out an hour for researching and making a list of specific micro-communities to focus on .

– Block out an hour for working on texting contacts to leave Amazon ratings.

– Block out an hour to write a job description for your virtual assistant position.

I also love time blocking as it’s a great way to hold yourself accountable at the end of a week. You have a transcript of how you spent your time, which makes it easier to start asking yourself the question: Can I get someone else to do this for me?

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3. Seed your people
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​I was chatting with one of our authors this morning Mike Kraus of Supervisor, Manager, Leader and he wrote me this:
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I was just told that the Philadelphia Fire Department just added my book to the officer promotion read list. Thinking about possibly seeding some books to FD training divisions out there. Your thoughts?
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Mike was a fire department officer.
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My thoughts? This is literally the best thing he can do. Play up his tribe, give books to his people and let them spread him to the masses.
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If you’re not getting your tribe copies of your book, you’re missing the easiest population to get excited about your book.
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Next steps for Mike:
1. Get a virtual assistant to make a list of Fire Departments and their contact information across the country.
2. Have that VA reach out as him mentioning that the Philadelphia fire department added his book to their list and so he thought to reach out to see if they wanted to get some books too.
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No one wants to be first so mentioning that someone is already doing it increases the perception of what you’re offering.

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2 Links

1. Daniel Pink talking about the 4 types of regret and how he marketed his book. Listen here.
2. My favorite marketing quote is by Allan Dib, “Random acts of marketing don’t work”. That means creating processes for your book marketing. Listen in on how to do so here.

1 Quote

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why”
Mark Twain

with love and sincere appreciation,

Alex
​BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife​
alex@getshelflife.com