Secrets to Turning a Book Idea into Best-Seller – in Just 7 Minutes with Alinka Rutkowska

Related Links and Resources:

I put together a book called "Outsource your Book". It's based on the article that I wrote for Entrepreneur magazine and it takes 17 steps needed to put together your book. And it explains where exactly you can go to outsource them. You can get it at www.leaderspress.com/book, you get both the PDF and audio book which I think you like since you're listening to this and you're a listener

Summary:

Alinka Rutkowska is a USA Today best-selling author, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author and a top 100 Amazon best-selling author in business and money. She’s sold more than 100,000 copies of her books and her book creation process has been showcased in Entrepreneur magazine.

She’s the CEO of Leaders Press, and has launched all its titles to best-seller status. She’s the founder of LibraryBub, which connects independent authors with around 10,000 librarians. She’s a sought after lecturer and has been voted top 5 speaker and named most creative book marketer at the Bestseller Summit Online.

She’s been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox Business, Writer’s Digest, Alliance of Independence Authors, International Book Publishers’ Association and many more. Alinka is an official member of the Forbes Business Council

Here are the highlights of this episode:

2:08 Alinka’s ideal Client: There are two types; the first type is an entrepreneur who's looking to grow their business and the books serves as a lead generation and a lead conversion tool. It's a phenomenal way to bring in clients or potential clients in their world and then to eventually convert them into a client. Then the second type is, an author who wants a legacy book. That's what we did with the co-founder of DHL International, and has a book design to win. We basically explained what his journey was and the 50 years that he has been in the company building it from scratch. And his motivation was not to build a company that's a billion-dollar business but to leave a legacy beyond the business. And explained in detail to his readers, to his heirs on how he got to where he is.

3:19 Problem Alinka helps solve: For the first type of entrepreneur, it's the growth issue. You might try for example webinar, podcasting, videos, blogging, and a lot of different activities and they might have worked very well. But then at a certain point you might have exhausted all the places that you could go and grow your list of potential clients. A book solves that problem. It opens up a whole new world because Amazon is one of the top search engines. When a prospect looks for a solution to their problem by typing their problem in the Google search box, or in the Amazon search box. When your book is properly positioned, it will pop up as one of the first hits and then that's how they will get into your world. That's the problem that we solve for those entrepreneurs that want to grow their business.

4:51 Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Alinka: Yes, you can write a book by yourself and hit publish using KDP Direct. There's a guy who published a picture of his foot just to show that you can publish anything; but then it's the market that verifies. Do you really want your name on a book that inside there's a picture of your foot? No, you don’t. Because you have a name that matters and you don't want to hit publish and have the book disappear. There are millions of books in Amazon and the ones that do well are the ones that have a team behind them. So, either you know how to market your book well, or you have a team of people who has done it many times and knows how to launch it. And I'll tell you, when you get the USA Today best-selling list, they're the top 150 best-selling books a week, I would say that 99.9% of those books had a launch strategy that's been carefully orchestrated behind them. I don't think there's even 1% that's there by chance, that's almost impossible. If you want a best seller especially if you want to hit one of the big lists, you really need to put a lot of attention and effort to it. Or, outsource it and have a team to do that for you.

6:51 What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Alinka and his solution: Probably being overwhelmed. You want to write a book but it's a big project, you have a business to run, you might not be a writer like you're gifted as an entrepreneur but writing is quite a different job. Then, apart from writing, there's the editing, there's the cover design, there's the marketing. It's a full-time job. And I don't think it's a full-time job that one person could do well. Basically, you became the project manager of this project, and I don't think you want to be the project manager of this project. You have people usually helping you with that, working for you. You don't really want to side-hassle that. So, the biggest problem is when you're overwhelmed.

8:04 Alinka’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): What I recommend is going to Amazon and finding a category where your book belongs. That's important. You want there to be an audience for your book. So, you browse to find a category, then you look at the top books which are the best-selling books in this category, and then you come up with a unique-selling proposition for yourself. Or, in other words you give a reader a reason to buy your book as opposed to the others that you see. And that's the first step, that's the first thing we do with every new author we bring on board. We need to make sure they have a great USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

9:06 Alinka’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): I put together a book called "Outsource your Book" it's based on the article that I wrote for Entrepreneur magazine and it takes 17 steps needed to put together your book. And it explains where exactly you can go to outsource them. But obviously at the end, I recommend you go work with us. However, you have links to everything. You can get it at leaderspress.com/book, you get both the PDF and audio book which I think you like since you're listening to this and you're a listener.

8:45 What are the obstacles standing in the entrepreneur's way, the excuses for them to not write a book? I actually have a 10-minute talk about it. I don't think we have 10 minutes! But there are so many excuses, some of them being "I can't write.. I'm not a writer" there are so many famous people whose books you read and you have no idea it was ghost written. So, it doesn't matter if you can't write or you don't have the time. When you make the time, you'll see what a great ROY (Return On You) potential you can make on the book. Many of the entrepreneurs that I'm in mastermind with have made a quarter million dollars, half a million dollar, a million dollars or more on the back end of their books. The books serve as their business card and then they see the ROY with their business growing. There’re so many excuses if you're thinking "well, sound cool but I don't really need a book" think about how you would feel when you grow your business times two because of your book.