Tim Grahl & Jeff Goins – Instant Bestseller Video Course

Today I want to talk to you about the online course that draws on the real-life evidence I’ve gathered from working with more than 100 authors across all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. The course that’s helped those authors build platforms and successfully launch books that have sold tens of thousands of copies.

This is the proven, step-by-step system that can take an author from no-sales to predictable-and-growing-sales.

It’s the complete step-by-step course that just works – even if:

• You’re still working on your first book
• You hate marketing
• You have almost no technology know-how

This is the course that will help you build your author platform, connect with readers, and sell thousands more books than you could imagine.

How do I know this information will work for you?

One day not long ago, I was sitting on a train heading in to DC, getting ready to share a crucial plan with my biggest client.

I was about to show him how we were going to take all the work we’d done for the previous three years and use it to launch his book as an instant bestseller.

There was a flipchart in the overhead space with my plan sketched out in black Sharpie. In front of me were my notes. I was going over them for the twelfth time, wondering if I’d missed anything.

I felt like all of my work for the previous three years had led up to this point, and I was scared that I would blow it.

Bestselling author Daniel Pink had told me that he was forgoing his usual book launch strategies.

He was trusting my strategies alone to make his book a bestseller.

You see, for the three years leading up to that point, he’d entrusted me to build his connections with readers. Like many authors, he’d had success in the past, but there was no guarantee he’d repeat it.

He needed a way to ensure that all of his work would pay off, to guarantee a bestseller each time he launched something new.

So he had hired me.

At the time, I had some good ideas on what it would take to build a platform to the point where we could guarantee bestseller status, but didn’t know if any of those ideas would work.

For the next three years, I worked with Dan to build his author platform and connect directly to his readers. We worked hard, and when we launched his book To Sell Is Human, we saw that work pay off.

It quickly hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller lists – all at the same time.

All signs pointed to my campaign as the determining factor behind the book launching so high – higher than any of Dan’s previous books.

You’d think I’d be excited at the prospect of creating another gangbuster. And I was. For a little while.

Then I thought, “Well, maybe it was just a fluke. Just because I got lucky once doesn’t mean it actually works. Maybe his book would have hit #1 without my efforts.”

Thankfully, I got a chance to test my methods again a few months later, when I ran the book launch for Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

Once again, they didn’t hire a publicist or any other outside firm. They just hired me.

The result? An instant #2 New York Times bestseller.

That same week I had not 1, not 2, but 5 clients sitting with bestsellers, at the same time

My clients Daniel Pink, Hugh Howey, Charles Duhigg, Chip and Dan Heath, and Michael Moss all had books on the New York Times bestseller list that week.

Finally, I let myself fully realize the truth: This stuff works!

After three years of work, I finally had real-world proof that the author platforms I was building produced real results! Validation is a wonderful thing.

What if I’m an author just getting started?

“But,” you’re saying, “of course it works for traditionally published authors getting big advances! But what about me – a no-name author just getting started?”

I was thinking the exact same thing 8 months ago, when I was about to launch my self-published book Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book.

I had a very small platform, because I’d spent all my time building my clients’ followings instead of my own.

I had less than 3% of the number of readers many of my clients had.

Understandably, I was even more nervous now. What if my book about book marketing was a flop? Could there be anything more embarrassing?

Once again, even small efforts to build my author platform paid off big time.

My book immediately jumped to #1 in all of its Amazon categories.

This included the extremely competitive Business & Investing -> Marketing category.

Since then, my book has hit #1 in its categories dozens of times, and I’ve sold over 6,500 copies.

More validation.

Here’s what I’ve learned after launching dozens of books and working with more than 100 authors:

Building an author platform to launch an instant bestseller is something any author, in any category, with any level of fame can do.

But it takes knowing what to do and, more importantly, what not to do.

Book marketing advice: It’s just too noisy in here!

There’s an endless amount of advice swirling around out there about marketing via Twitter, blogging, podcasts, Pinterest, Facebook, forums, Pages, Tumblr and everything else.

The classic understatement for most authors is, It’s hard to know where to focus your time to get results.

After a while most of us just want to throw up our hands in exhaustion and frustration, and give up.

I’ve talked to so many authors who have tried so many tools and failed, that they decide failure is their natural destiny.

That stuff just breaks my heart.

It’s now easier than ever to publish your book and connect with readers, yet so many authors still feel hopeless and stranded, as if there were no successful tools or methods that could work for them.

Does the following story sound familiar?

You read an article about how every author should be on Twitter, so you set up or reactivate your account. You then Google around and find 3 or 4 blog posts on how to use Twitter to market and sell more books.

You follow their advice to the letter. But 2 weeks, 3 months or 6 months later, you’re once again frustrated that this is yet another tool that’s “just not working.”

But therein lies the problem: We tend to focus on the tools instead of the blueprint.

Would you go out and buy a hammer, watch a few YouTube videos on how to hammer, then start to build your new house — using no other tools, and no blueprint? Of course not!

Tools like Twitter, blogs, podcasts, Facebook and Pinterest work in exactly the same way — they’re just tools.

Before you can use any of them effectively, you must have a plan. A way for all of them to work together to build your author platform and to sell more books.

Before I explain how to do that, let’s point out two truths we’ve already established:

1. Any author can build a platform that will launch an instant bestseller.
2. Before you start grabbing tools, you have to have a plan — a design or blueprint for what you’re going to build.

Now, let’s take a look at what a plan looks like. There are three integrated pieces:

First, there’s Permission.

You need to have Permission to communicate with your readers in a way that gets their attention and drives them to action. You need to ensure you can talk to them, and to know that they’ll listen.

Second, there’s Content.

You have to spread your Content widely and freely. This gives people a chance to interact with your work, before they give you Permission to contact them or buy your book.

Third, there’s Outreach.

You need a way to ensure that people know you exist, so that new people are continuously hearing about you and your work on a regular basis.

That’s it. That’s the plan. When you tie them all together, it looks like this: