IS ai recommending your book? 3 secrets, 2 links, 1 quote

Reader,

Do you read non-fiction?

Between Before The Bestseller (where I interview some of the top authors in the world),
my work at ShelfLife (where we directly work with some of the top authors in the world),
and my own thirst for interesting stories and perspective, I pretty easily get through a book a week.
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SO

I’ve launched a 321 for fellow big-time readers!

Each week, I’ll be sharing what I’m currently reading, along with my honest, uncensored, personal lens of a bogan-Australian whose almost become civilized living in the US.

Each email includes:
A 3-sentence description/review of the book
2 takeaways/things I found interesting or didn’t know before
1 person who might like the book

ANYWAY…

Today’s 321 is inspired by the most in-depth conversation I’ve had about getting AI to recommend your book. Listen to the whole episode here.

3 Secrets:

1. Most important thing for AI to recommend your book

Not dissimilar to SEO, If your book came out less than a year ago AI probably isn’t recommending your book yet simply because it’s too new to have been picked up by the algorithms.

SO what can you do to make sure you’re on the path to getting AI to consistently recommend your book?

1. Getting on podcasts is STILL important: Not just for the listeners who will connect with you and your story but for the links those shows will include pointing to your website.
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   BUT lets make sure there’s a process in place to support our marketing activities:
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   Hire a VA on onlinejobs.ph and have them sign up to use matchmaker.com to get you on one podcast each week. (I literally just started this myself). NOTE: If your VA is outside the US, they’ll need to use a Virtual Private Network to access the site. A VPN can be as low as $10/mo to get in place – I’m not an expert on VPN’s so ask chatGPT if you don’t know what it is.
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2. Get interviewed by local media: Like…local local. Does your neighborhood have a publication? Does your small town have a publication? Go for those! Just being local makes you relevant and can be some easy low hanging fruit for getting mentioned by traditional media which the AI learning models care deeply about.

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2. Use Case: An update on our own book marketing:
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​I wanted to share our numbers in case you find them useful to benchmark in your own journey – and as proof that seeding copies works…if the book is good enough.

If you’re a follower of this NL than you know how much we view seeding X amount of copies as THE true north of testing whether or not your book has legs.

We just crossed 1,700 copies of Before The Bestseller in the wild, broken down as follows:

After our launch we continue to seed 25 or so free copies into the wild each week via LinkedIn outreach and giving books away to events.

What has that resulted in for word of mouth sales?

They’ve honestly dropped every month since we stopped our major marketing push for the book in July.

That is to say, organic sales have continued to drop since July

…until this month

October is on pace to double the organic sales of September.

Stay tuned of if this trend continues or if it was just a flash in the pan 🙂

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3. Is the main idea of your book the least valuable thing about it?

I get asked a lot about how the influx of AI generated books will dominate the market

Great, but those people overloading Amazon with their content still need to find a way to market their books

Until AI can effectively replace a brand, book marketing team, and launch strategy, it’s akin to thinking you’ll dig up more gold just because you bought a shovel.

That said…our team is looking for unique ways to build book marketing team-members with AI, respond to this if you want to be on the waitlist for our first one ShelfLife MediaMatch which works to connect you with journalists writing about your topic.

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2 Links

1. AI company Anthropic used thousands of authors’ books—maybe even yours—to train its model, Claude. Now, a $1.5 billion settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic could change everything for creators. Get your share of the Anthropic Lawsuit – our good friend Kary Oberbrunner put this YouTube video together on how to go about it.
2. NYT Bestselling author Dava Sobel on the Magic of Science Writing and Lifelong Discovery. Listen here.

1 Quote

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
— Ernest Hemingway

with love and sincere appreciation,

Alex
​BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife​
alex@getshelflife.com
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P.S. Know someone who needs help marketing their book? We offer a $500 referral bonus 🙂
P.S.S. Did someone share this 321 with you? Sign up here.