Make Marketing Suck Less

3 Word Rebellion Book Launch Debrief

Hey, hey, hey rebels!

Today is the day. I'm going to break it all down for you. I'm going to let you know exactly how the 3 Word Rebellion book launch went.

We're going to talk about the good, the bad, the downright terrible, and I'm going to reveal all the numbers to you. How much did it take to create this book? How many copies did I sell and is it profitable for my business? Are you ready for this? Because I certainly am.

Whether you're thinking about writing a book, launching a product, a program, or a service in the future, (or not) this episode will have some great takeaways for you. You’ll be able to do all the things that I wish I had done the first time around, while also gracefully learning from my mistakes!

So let's dive in.

Tune into the Audio:

What was amazing about the 3 Word Rebellion book launch, and for me the coolest thing to see after working on this book for well over a year is how well received it was.

I was getting Facebook messages, Instagram DMs, and emails about how much people were loving the book. I was getting feedback every day and the Rebel Rising Facebook group about the book and how it was impacting people and their business. And I loved reading the reviews that were coming in on Amazon about the book and how it was changing people's businesses already.

Like this book from Vicky G, she said,

“The book was easy to read, had simple exercises and it and is effective. I hadn't even finished reading the whole book and on day two I had a huge epiphany and came up with my 3 Word Rebellion. It's taking my business in a whole new direction. I'm inspired and focused. If you're an entrepreneur, you need this book and they love hearing that because this book is infused with the intention that it's going to make a difference in your business, that you're going to reach more of the people who need you and your message.”

So it was fun to see. It's so well received, whether it was reviews or on social media. Additionally, I heard from a lot of coaches that they were adding the 3 Word Rebellion book as a component of their program.

So for instance, for instance, Susan Hyatt, who is a friend of the podcast, and will be featured on an upcoming show, she loved the book so much. She's adding it to her mastermind group as a required reading.

The really cool thing is my friend, Racheal Cook, who is a business strategist, told me that she's using the book as a resource in her Sweet Spot Strategy business program. Also, one of my clients, who is enrolled in Seth Godin‘s, the podcast fellowship, posted about the 3 Word Rebellion book in the group and the coach of the course was so intrigued by the concept that they added it to the resource list for that program.

I love the fact that business coaches, and I'm hoping copywriters or even website designers, use this book as a resource for their clients because messaging is one of the hardest things you can do in your business.

And this book just gives you that step by step process.

So, oh my gosh, blown away. So well received. So what worked well to give me all of those amazing feelings, number one, asking for help.

I asked for so much help during this book launch that I now feel comfortable making awkward asks to people.

So, I sent an email to my list asking if they could introduce me to anyone who had a podcast or if they wanted to have me on their podcast. I was totally open to it. Or if they could introduce me to an influencer or even just share the book on the day it came out and so many people wrote back made introductions, asked me to be on their podcast and shared the book.

So asking for help in that way, from that space of like I can't do this alone really propelled this book to success.

Also, my coaches and mentors who shared the book and reached out to their network and asked for a podcast or to share the book with their community. I really appreciate all of the efforts that they put into promoting this book.

The final thing that worked really well was the book bonuses.

Rather than traditional book bonuses, and let me tell you people I see all the time that people do these very elaborate book bonuses with tons of videos and content, but really I think it's best to keep it simple because people don't have time to consume all of that content.

So, for me with the book bonuses, I just had the PDF of the book, which you can't get anywhere, but during that book launch period. I'm also doing an “ask me anything” group call where people can ask me questions about the book or their message for 60 minutes. I put the 3 Word Rebellion toolkit in there and I gave people access to the rebel rising mugs.

So all of that worked really well.

But what do I wish I would have doubled down on more were the book bonuses for sure. 50% of the people who purchase the book also got the book bonuses, which is amazing.

However, I should have done a lot more to promote the book bonuses.

This is a big reason why that we're going to talk about in the what went horribly wrong section of this launch, but I wish I would have talked about the book bonuses more.

I also would have liked to ask more people to share the book. I would have liked to have done more outreach and also asking more people to review the book.

I think that is another thing, but the cool thing is is that this book launch is a marathon, not a sprint. So I can still reach out to people and ask them to share the book.

I can still do more outreach for reviews and keep the buzz going.

So what didn't work and what went horribly wrong?

Number one, I hired someone to help me with podcasts pitching and when I did this in 2018 it yielded pretty good results. But this time around I kind of got mixed results from hiring someone to pitch for podcasts for me and honestly I got better results just from asking my network and my community and the people who support me.

Number two, I needed more help on the back end of this launch. I needed more help setting up the book bonuses and member vault. I needed more help with the email support for people getting their book bonuses and setting up all the automations. I needed another person to do all of that cause I was doing it myself, not the best use of my time, which led to the third thing that didn't work because I forgot to do something very important, which was right.

Book launch emails. Yes.

So when you were receiving an email, if you're on my email list about the book launching, I probably wrote that 10 minutes before I sent it because I just didn't think about the fact I needed launch emails even though it was in my project plan.

Totally forgot. That's a big oops.

If you're launching anything, people write your emails in advance, it's going to save you so much stress.

Now, one thing that went horribly, horribly wrong was the book distribution and my choice to use a company called Ingram Spark to distribute the book.

So here is my epic rant on why this was so bad.

On the third day of the launch, I went to Amazon to pull some reviews to do some more promotion of the book and all of a sudden I noticed that the delivery date of the book was one to two months away.

It was going to take Ingram Spark one to two months to ship the book. They are a print on demand company, not print in one to two months. So I did what normal people would do. I contacted Ingram Spark and was like, “Hey, what's going on?”

And they said, oh, it's an Amazon problem. So I called Amazon and they say, oh, it's an Ingram Spark problem. So I called Ingram Spark back and they say, oh well we talked to different customer service people than you do. And I'm like, oh well can you contact them? Oh no, they won't do anything for you. What is going on?

So, I then asked, all right, how do I get Amazon to be the primary distributor of this book just on Amazon? And Ingram Spark says, oh Michelle, but you can't do that. You'd have to cancel your listing.

You'd lose all of your reviews, you would need a new ISP and number and yadda, yadda, yadda. All of the reasons why people were going to have to wait for one to two months to get my book because I couldn't move it.

And something in me said you know what, that's not right.

I call Amazon and they tell me the exact opposite. Oh yeah, no problem. Just get it uploaded and approve it and you know, 24 to 72 hours, we'll take it over. Same listing, not a big deal. You own your ISP number.

So Ingram Spark lied to me during customer service, so that's terrible. And not only that, they have terrible customer service, they lie obviously, but every time I contacted them, it was never their fault. It was somehow my fault or it was Amazon's fault. Or when a couple of book errors came to my attention, literally one person was sent the book, it was the cover of my book, and inside was a book about carburetor repair.

That seems like a pretty huge fuck up. That's massive.

I'm like, oh, but that wasn't their fault. Of course, it was their production facilities fault and I'm like, you hire these people, come on. Then another person had a book that the printing was not quite right. The margins were a bit messed up. It was a little, it was a little skewed and they couldn't take responsibility for that at all.

Their big response was like, oh well tell the people to return the book. Yeah, thanks. No Shit, Sherlock, whatever.

So, I decided to move the book to Amazon, which would have been lovely except Amazon thinks that if you are a self published author that you designed your book in Word. And this book since I wanted it to be beautifully designed, was designed in Adobe InDesign, which is the industry standard.

So when I uploaded the book, it got rejected for print problems and we had to figure it out.

My poor designer of Natalie McGuire Designs, she is a champ. She spent four hours on a Friday night trying to figure it out.

But eventually, we had the book up on Amazon and Amazon has great distribution and really good customer service.

So bottom line, never ever, ever, ever use Ingram Spark. They are terrible.

All right, so now that I told you what went horribly wrong, let's talk about the 3 Word Rebellion by the numbers.

A big question that I've been asked lately is what does it cost to create a book like this?

I wanted to create a book that people would be proud to carry around.

So I spent a bit, I made a big investment into the design of this book, not just the money, but also my time and energy to make it look the way that I wanted it to look.

So the book design and graphics cost $1,920 all in.

Copy editing for the book, because every book needs a good copy editor, I used Amy Scott from Nomad Editing.

There was a lot of software for this, for the book launch. So things like Type and Zapier and Members Vault were about a hundred dollars for the book launch.

And then I got Rebel Rising mugs to send as gifts for people left reviews.

So all in the book costs about $3,850 so that was my investment in getting the book out into the world.

So how did the launch itself go?

So I set good, better, and best goals. Am I good? Goal was 250 my better goal was 500 and my best goal was a 1,000 copies sold. So at the time of this recording, I have sold 320 copies of this book. So that means I landed between my good and better goal. So yay, that feels really good.

It was also a number one bestseller in new releases straight away, so that felt amazing as well.

And I know that's an Amazon vanity metric, but you know, it's still kind of feels good. I ended with 27 reviews on Amazon and two more on international sites. So 29 altogether. I booked a total of 13 consults for my one on one service, the 3 Word Rebellion messaging intensive. I've been asked on podcasts almost weekly since the book has come out. So that's awesome.

That's exactly what a 3 Word Rebellion is supposed to do for you. It's supposed to generate the buzz so that you can get the attention of the media.

And so far since the book launch, I've gotten two new clients from the book. So right now I am sitting at $7,164 that I've made from the book launch and from the clients that I've gained from the book.

So the good news, the book is profitable, yay.

But not only that, it's proving to me that is a great lead generation tool for my one on one service. So I know in the future that I need to double down more on book promotion and really getting to that goal of selling 5,000 copies of this book this year or more. My goal is really to get this book into as many hands as possible.

So what's next for the launch and how can you support the book?

So if you haven't already, the best way to support this podcast and to support me is to buy the book. It is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and if you're international, it's on The Book Depository.

If you purchased a copy, share it with one friend, tell one person about it, talk about it in a course you're taking or a group program or with your mastermind group.

And as always, if you can please leave a review of the book on Amazon. Reviews are currency on Amazon. They show Amazon that this book is good, this book is important, and people like it. So they will send it to more people and show it more in their algorithms.

And as for me, what I am going to be doing in the next few months is doing more podcast interviews. I've got lots of podcasts and interviews booked.

I'm starting to do some workshops for other people's communities. So I designed a 3 Word Rebellion workshop that I can offer to other coaches, consultants, copywriters, and their communities to help them find their message. And I'm strategically sharing the book on social media and I'm developing a plan to do that. I'm also creating more videos for the book because I know that this book is for me, the engine that is going to drive my business forward in the future.

So here is to a successful launch, embracing the and of the amazing and downright shitty at times and moving onward to selling those 5,000 copies.

So I'd love to know what you learned about launching your book or product or service today.

What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Come find me on Instagram and let me know in the DMs.

The marathon is just beginning.