How an Oregon Salesman and Two Former Pastors Self-Published a Best-Selling Novel and Sold 750,000 Copies on a $300 Marketing Budget By Guillermo Rubio, AWAI Staff Writer

Getting your novel published can be tough. Selling a few thousand copies – even tougher.

Selling over a million copies? Near impossible. (You’ve got a better chance of getting struck by lightning.)

But today you’ll see how an Oregon salesman-turned-first-time author, along with two former pastors, are close to doing just that.

In fact, if you’ve ever dreamed of writing a bestseller, what this trio did may be just the answer you’ve been looking for to put the odds heavily in your favor.

William P. Young – the Oregon salesman-turned-author – never thought he’d write a best-seller.

He wrote his book, The Shack, to describe his journey through misery into “light, love, and transformation” to his children. As he explained in an article in USAToday, “My only goal was to get [the book] copied and bound at Kinko’s in time for Christmas as a gift to my kids.”

But then something happened that led Young to actually publish his book.

He had read and enjoyed a book of parables that was authored and self-published by former pastor, Wayne Jacobson. Shortly thereafter, Young met Jacobson at a book reading being held at a local bookstore. Young asked the former pastor to read his manuscript for The Shack.

Jacobson loved it, and joined forces with Young and another former pastor, Brad Cummings, to try to get it published. They went to Christian publishers, but were told it was too “edgy.” Secular publishers said it was too “Jesus-y.”

Simply put, rejection was becoming the norm. So the two former pastors decided they would publish it themselves, and all three would market it.

They set out to create a buzz, promoting the book church to church, by word of mouth, and even online through blogging.

The book is now sold at all major bookstores, as well as Wal-Mart. There are 880,000 copies in print and 750,000 in distribution. To top it all off, the trio has talked with major New York publishing houses – and even Hollywood about a possible film deal.

So, how do you get your book to become a bestseller?

The key is word-of-mouth marketing, also known as viral marketing. You get one person interested in the book … and he in turn tells everyone he knows about it … and they tell everyone they know … and so on.

The secret of successful viral marketing – especially for a book – is to have a message that’s timely and an idea that captures some part of the national psyche.

No one knows this better than James Redfield, who self-published his first novel, The Celestine Prophecy, in 1992. Just like Young’s book, Redfield’s book was deemed too spiritual by major publishers. So … like Young and the two pastors, Redfield created a buzz about his book by going church-to-church and getting the word out.

Because Redfield’s book captured the national psyche, it quickly gained momentum, and The Celestine Prophecy became one of the most successful self-published books of all time. Later on, the rights were bought by a major publisher, and the book became a #1 New York Times best-seller, and the #1 international bes-tseller of 1996.

The result of self-promotion combined with a book that touched the nation’s soul?

Over 20 million copies sold!

Another self-published author, Gary Scott, who created AWAI’s Self Publishing: Your Complete Business Plan for Creating a Life Without Borders program, accidentally stumbled upon his own opportunity to tap into the national psyche when a client recommended a book entitled How to Survive the Upcoming Crash of 1995, a New York Times best-seller.

The possibility of a crash scared Scott to death. After reading the book, he thought for sure the U.S. economy was headed for a meltdown as a result of the out-of-control national debt. And, he was frustrated because the author offered no advice to help investors prepare for that meltdown.

So, Scott worked out his own recommendations for responding to this imminent economic crisis, and self-published the details in a report. He sold the report on his own at seminars, through direct mail, and by getting the word out every way he could. (Remember this was 1995 … pre-Internet as we know it today.) And over the next two years, he made millions from it.

Scott’s report sold well because it was tuned in to the way investors felt at the time. Millions of investors had read How to Survive the Upcoming Crash of 1995. And Scott’s report offered them solutions to problems presented in the book that they were very interested in discovering.

So, how can you take the nation’s pulse?

First, check out the best-seller lists. Go on Amazon.com to see what’s selling well.

That will give you insight as to what people are interested in … what they’re worry about … what they desire. Once you’ve figured this out, ask yourself: Do I have a solution that touches on one of these hot buttons. If so … write it as a book! Then it’s just a matter of letting people know about it.

Here are a few tips on how to do that:

• Let a few close friends and family members read your book, and ask them for testimonials.
• Create a website about the book, and post those testimonials. Then start visiting blogs and forums whose participants might be interested in the subject of your book. Let them know about it and your website, and encourage them to tell their friends about it.
• Start an email campaign. Email everyone you know to tell them about the book, and ask them to pass it on to their email contacts.
• Let people in your community know about the book. Whether it’s at church, the local Elks Lodge, or the local Chamber of Commerce.
• Find places to sell it. Flea markets, festivals, street fairs, etc.
• Write a press release about the book, and send it out to local radio stations, newspapers, and magazines.

If this sounds like a lot of hard work … well, it is. At least, it can be a lot of “leg work.”

Fortunately, thanks to the Internet and the social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, there are now much easier ways to promote your book. In fact, you can promote your book entirely from the comfort of your favorite armchair.

Keep an eye out for upcoming issues of The Golden Thread to learn more details about how to put these proven viral marketing strategies to work for you.