Day 12 of the 12-Day Content Creation Challenge

10 Launch Secrets You Need To Know From An Amazon Bestselling Author By WBR Founder Georgia Kirke

What does it really take to achieve Amazon bestseller status? Is there a blueprint you must follow, can you do it your way, and can a sprinkle of positivity help you raise the bar?

For the finale of our 12 day content creation challenge we’re revealing secrets from bestselling author Caroline Sanderson. She’s written two books with us, and her second Mindset, Magic & Miracles has peaked, becoming a bestseller in every one of the book’s Amazon categories in both the UK and the US.

Her first book, The Salon Jedi, was a bestseller seven times (so far) and between the two books Caroline has gained phenomenal success and authority in her niche, as well as significant financial return.

Her second book benefited from a phased release in two different formats: hardback, and paperback.

A new chapter

Caroline, who was once a hair salon owner on the brink of bankruptcy (now a seven-figure business owner) is now a coach and founder of the award-winning Small Business & Salon Jedi Coaching Academy.

She’s goal driven, but more importantly she’s an action taker. Her books are strategically designed to generate specific business results and, even though you will need to tailor your book launch to your target audience, the 10 secrets we’re sharing below will propel you towards success.

10 secrets to propel your book towards bestseller status

Set a clear intention

Caroline walks her talk (see her second book!). She set clear objectives, put all her energy, focus and effort into bringing those launch goals to fruition (intention) and delivered outstanding results. She attributes her bestseller status, in part, to her intention, rather than by default of her actions. She utilised all the tools she shares in her second book (meditation, visualisation, affirmation) to succeed.

Be bold

Caroline has personally worked with world-famous coaches and mentors including mindset coach and behaviour expert John Asaraf (he featured in the film and book The Secret). She invited John to write the foreword for her second book.

Caroline: “He wrote a killer foreword for my book. Even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have imagined he’d write what he did. He nailed it and when he sent it through to me all I could think was ‘wow.’”

When you are thinking of the best person to write your foreword Caroline advises you to be “bold”, and leverage the content they give you as much as possible.

As part of her marketing campaign (Caroline is a marketing machine), she sent chapter excerpts to high-profile coaches (Mat Wilson, Andy Harrington who she has worked with before), and invited them to record short videos sharing their thoughts. She made the most of the powerful videos they provided on social media and her landing pages.

Private launch

Instead of immediately telling the whole world her second book (paperback version) was published, Caroline arranged a private launch with her VIP coaching clients (and her waiting list). By this time she’d already become a bestseller in eight Amazon categories; she used her bestseller status to ramp up sales of both versions of her book (and created a bundle of bonuses to go with it).

Multibuy offer & bonuses

Caroline knew that to achieve her objective she also needed to sell books in bulk. She created special offers where people who bought three, five or 10 books at a time were entered into a prize draw with the potential to win one-to-one coaching with her (or one of her team).

She created memes and adverts (see #5 and #9) suggesting different reasons as to why buying more than one book was a good idea. These included: salon owners gifting it to junior members of staff as their mindset bible, giving them away as raffle prizes, Christmas presents, and using them as gifts for their salon clients.

Imagery and branding

Personal branding is a fantastic way to build immediate recognition in any industry and Caroline took this one step further to supercharge her book launch. Using her brand colours she created memes and graphics that ran through her website, her social media and her Amazon sales page (see #8).

Every single time a potential client saw a component of Caroline’s content they knew they were in safe hands because it was consistent and unmistakably hers (this encourages people to buy).

Caroline used strong case studies and testimonials both within her book and throughout her marketing campaign.

Keywords and phrases

Caroline used keywords to market her second book with phenomenal success. She brainstormed the title and subtitle of her book but nailed it by using Amazon to see which words were frequently being searched for. She chose the ones that would give her the best chance of a high ranking.

WBR explored the use of keywords in more depth on day 9 of the content creation challenge.

Amazon category listing

When you upload your book to Amazon you are invited to select two categories that best describe your book, but what many people don’t realise is that once your book is live you can add up to another eight categories.

Caroline made the most of her additional eight categories and chose the ones she believed would give her the best chance of success (she knocked author Brene Brown off one list for a few days and ranked higher than James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy which is no mean feat!).

Caroline utilised all the categories she could (for hardback and paperback), including spiritual gifts, biography, and business categories.

Amazon A+ content

Amazon A+ is a feature available to professional sellers (see t&c) whereby you can make your books leap out by using personally branded images and text (including a carousel display). You can also link to other products. Caroline utilised this exceptionally well using her impactful branded imagery (#5) and social proof in the form of client testimonials.

Paid advertising

Caroline analysed which products salon owners (part of her target demographic) were buying on Amazon and ran a targeted ad campaign so whenever they searched for hair foils or salon products, an advert for Mindset, Magic & Miracles would appear. She also ran a targeted Facebook ad campaign.

Public relations

Determined to make her dreams a reality Caroline also maxed out her PR connections so that she featured in the local press, industry press, was invited onto podcasts and sent all the runners up of a salon awards ceremony (which she describes as their version of the Oscars) a free copy of her book.

Caroline knew by doing this she was getting her book into the hands of some of her industry’s go-getters who wanted to move to the next level (and would benefit from her coaching expertise, mindset and personal growth tools, and generosity).

What’s your intention for you and your book? Do you want to help hundreds of people, and in the process become a bestselling author?

Even if you are not yet a powerhouse like Caroline (she is exemplary!!) you can make your bucket list dream to write a book come true in 2022, and benefit from the expertise of our team here at Write Business Results. It’s time to start a new chapter, check out our brand and content strategy session for more information.