When I made the decision to create and market my first ebook, The Tech Resume Inside Out, I anticipated learning about the craft. How one produces a first-rate publication? How one should interact with editors? planning book cover and picture designs. And I have, in fact, picked up a lot on these subjects.
After doing, then reading, the seven product sales-related areas I have discovered more about are compiled in this essay. As an enterpeneur, the book publishing and sales experience seemed like running a (very) small company. One with no risks: but it revealed places I would have overlooked had I launched a company today.
What then was what I learnt? marketing, media coverage, advertising, content marketing, SEO, client assistance and bookkeeping. Most of all, why selling something will teach you considerably more about any of this than just reading - including reading an article like this one.
1. Marketing:
Software programmers are used to constructing things, shipping them, then on to the next project. Considering business ideas, I have concentrated on the "is there a demand for this?" and "how would I build this?" questions.
I spent 2.5 months developing, revising, and perfecting the approximately 200 page book's material. The almost ready material prompted me to create a list of launch preparations tasks. Given the time and work the book required and the clear beta feedback indicating it was a fantastic book for engineering resumes, I wanted to make sure those either looking for jobs or out of a job could find out about it.
Your Own "Marketing" Network Only Gets So Far
I spent another month just concentrated on marketing tasks. These ranged from the construction - and refining - a landing page, funnels to grab the book for free, gathering quotes and other activities. Most things were ready then, three weeks of delay in the launch notwithstanding. Pressing the launch button, I broadcast the launch messages on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook among other networks.
Launching something inside my own network created interest on several reshares on my social media accounts. With around 200 transactions and almost $2,900 in income—deals included free books for developers without jobs—it attracted 2,700 visitors to the landing page.
2. Media Viewpoint
I corrected a few sharp edges on the landing page a week following launch and felt ready to send to Hacker News. The material spoke to this group. I wrote a Show HN post, crossed my fingers, and with luck the piece ended up voted on the first page of Hacker News.
One outlet that draws significantly more views than most internet forums is Hacker News. My own network across several social media platforms brought 2,700 views to the book's landing page. Hacker News 2-3x'd this traffic in two days, with at least 7,000 visitors from this site. The book sold 2.5x the volume of the last launch:
3. Marketing
Having become tired of how slow and unpleasant webpages were without adblockers, I had used them for years. Knowing how focused advertising works, I also considered myself to be "immune" to these commercials, generally. And I most certainly felt they were more disruptive than required or essential.
4. Hacking Content Marketing and Growth
Apart from irritating emails arriving to my blog, with people requesting me to add links either for free or for a payment, I understood little about growth hacking and content marketing. Emails I always disregarded.
As it turns out, when advertising is costly - which you would find the case - you might pay a "growth hacker" to try to create more visitors for the same money instead of shelling out $50,000 on commercials. Then growth hackers would publish on forums, contact providers, create papers, and so forth. Some of the techniques are dubious, some straight unacceptable—like posing as a software engineer in order to access a members-only forum—then linking to company articles.
5. Improve SEO
A last and clear traffic source is SEO optimization—ranking better on Google. Together with The Google Resume by Gayle Laakmann McDowel, my book on software developer resumes is one of the two on this subject. When they search "developer resume," let's see whether they come onto my book:
Thomas Hardy
When I made the decision to create and market my first ebook, The Tech Resume Inside Out, I anticipated learning about the craft. How one produces a first-rate publication? How one should interact with editors? planning book cover and picture designs. And I have, in fact, picked up a lot on these subjects.
After doing, then reading, the seven product sales-related areas I have discovered more about are compiled in this essay. As an enterpeneur, the book publishing and sales experience seemed like running a (very) small company. One with no risks: but it revealed places I would have overlooked had I launched a company today.
What then was what I learnt? marketing, media coverage, advertising, content marketing, SEO, client assistance and bookkeeping. Most of all, why selling something will teach you considerably more about any of this than just reading - including reading an article like this one.
1. Marketing:
Software programmers are used to constructing things, shipping them, then on to the next project. Considering business ideas, I have concentrated on the "is there a demand for this?" and "how would I build this?" questions.
I spent 2.5 months developing, revising, and perfecting the approximately 200 page book's material. The almost ready material prompted me to create a list of launch preparations tasks. Given the time and work the book required and the clear beta feedback indicating it was a fantastic book for engineering resumes, I wanted to make sure those either looking for jobs or out of a job could find out about it.
Your Own "Marketing" Network Only Gets So Far
I spent another month just concentrated on marketing tasks. These ranged from the construction - and refining - a landing page, funnels to grab the book for free, gathering quotes and other activities. Most things were ready then, three weeks of delay in the launch notwithstanding. Pressing the launch button, I broadcast the launch messages on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook among other networks.
Launching something inside my own network created interest on several reshares on my social media accounts. With around 200 transactions and almost $2,900 in income—deals included free books for developers without jobs—it attracted 2,700 visitors to the landing page.
2. Media Viewpoint
I corrected a few sharp edges on the landing page a week following launch and felt ready to send to Hacker News. The material spoke to this group. I wrote a Show HN post, crossed my fingers, and with luck the piece ended up voted on the first page of Hacker News.
One outlet that draws significantly more views than most internet forums is Hacker News. My own network across several social media platforms brought 2,700 views to the book's landing page. Hacker News 2-3x'd this traffic in two days, with at least 7,000 visitors from this site. The book sold 2.5x the volume of the last launch:
3. Marketing
Having become tired of how slow and unpleasant webpages were without adblockers, I had used them for years. Knowing how focused advertising works, I also considered myself to be "immune" to these commercials, generally. And I most certainly felt they were more disruptive than required or essential.
4. Hacking Content Marketing and Growth
Apart from irritating emails arriving to my blog, with people requesting me to add links either for free or for a payment, I understood little about growth hacking and content marketing. Emails I always disregarded.
As it turns out, when advertising is costly - which you would find the case - you might pay a "growth hacker" to try to create more visitors for the same money instead of shelling out $50,000 on commercials. Then growth hackers would publish on forums, contact providers, create papers, and so forth. Some of the techniques are dubious, some straight unacceptable—like posing as a software engineer in order to access a members-only forum—then linking to company articles.
5. Improve SEO
A last and clear traffic source is SEO optimization—ranking better on Google. Together with The Google Resume by Gayle Laakmann McDowel, my book on software developer resumes is one of the two on this subject. When they search "developer resume," let's see whether they come onto my book: