Why should anyone give a sample chapter or mini-version of their book for free? The main reason - usually to sell or make money - isn’t always accomplished at the front end of the marketing process, it often comes later, and brings profits way beyond your best expectations.
Here’s how and why to use the sample chapter technique to generate leads for your info product.
* To test your idea for a new information product before spending days, weeks, months creating something nobody wants to buy. If few people request the freebie, your product is almost certainly a no-goer, similarly if the freebie is popular but results in few or no paid-for orders.
* The sample chapter can be a selling tool not only for its own full length paid-for version, but for other products too, where for example a list or catalogue of additional products is included with the giveaway item. For instance, the first chapter of ‘The Way to a Man’s Heart: Cooking with Known Aphrodisiacs’ might generate interest in the paid-for version of the book and might additionally direct readers to web sites offering related info products, such as ‘1001 Ways to Be Romantic’, ‘How to Find the Man of Your Dreams’, and so on. It pays to be careful, however, when including links for other people’s products, and ensure they do not detract from the real reason the sample chapter was given, namely to sell that cookery book. As for all things in mail order, direct mail, online marketing, you must test response to all your promotions.
* The first chapter can represent a ‘suck it and see’ guarantee to a product delivered in installments, such as correspondence courses, resell rights packages, and so on. If Chapter One or Module One isn’t as expected, readers can cancel their post-dated standing order or request a refund of money already paid.
* Sample chapters can be articles you’ve written for payment elsewhere, where copyright is yours, and the article or series of articles is expanded to book or course format. A popular article is its own proof of a likely best selling book and you’ve probably completed most of the research already, and been paid for it.
Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors, Book Publicity through Social Networking
